Nick Carter

CARTER, F/O Arthur Reginald (J15673) - Distinguished Flying Cross - No.153 Sq.
Award effective 15 September 1943 as per London Gazette dated 28 September 1943 and
AFRO 2198/43 dated 29 October 1943.

Flying Officer Carter has taken part in a large number of operational sorties. A determined and relentless night fighter, he has consistently displayed keenness and courage of a high degree in the course of air combat. At night he has destroyed four enemy aircraft.

Second Member Of R.C.A.F. Wins Second Bar To D.F.C.

Ottawa, Sept 27, 1943 - (CP) - Sqdn. Ldr. George Urquhart Hill of Pictou, N.S., a fighter pilot who has shot down 14 enemy aircraft, one of them at night, has become the second member of the R.C.A.F. to win a second bar to his Distinguished Flying Cross, air force headquarters announced today.
The only other R.C.A.F. flier to win two bars to the Flying Cross is Sqdn. Ldr. J. E. Walker of Edmonton.
Headquarters also announced today award of the D.F.C. to F/O A. R. Carter of 713 Dufferin St., Toronto, and the Distinguished Flying Medal to Sgt, J. P. Lee of Lucerne Lake, Wash., and Victoria.
The R.C.A.F. later announced award of Distinguished Flying Crosses to four other members of the R.C.A.F. and of the Distinguished Flying Medal to a Canadian serving with the R.A.F. Following are the awards-

DRIVE IN ITALY NO SURPRISE, AIRMAN NOTES

Ottawa, May 29, 1944 - (CP) - The big push in Italy was no surprise to F/L H. J. Everard, D.F.C., of Timmins, Ont., back in Canada today with one of the largest groups of R.C.A.F. repatriates ever to return from overseas. Nearly 200 men were in the party.
Everard served with the crack City of Windsor Spitfire fighter squadron in Italy and saw the British 8th Army and its Canadian corps move from the Adriatic to the other Italian front in preparation for the surprise attack.
"We watched the British and Canadians move and saw the equipment piling up and we knew the Germans were in for a heck of a pasting," he said.
Everard won his "gong" (medal) for fighting in Sicily and Italy, where he knocked down at least three enemy planes. But he has served in India and Burma and also China, where his squadron co-operated with the famous American Volunteer Group.

Flies Italian Plane
The accomplishment of which he is most proud however, is his credit of five hours flying in an Italian Macchi fighter. He saw a bunch of Macchis on a Sicilian airdrome he was shooting up. When the Germans retired he took a truck and a couple of mechanics and found the 'drome. Most of the abandoned planes had been destroyed but one Macchi was in fair condition. He refueled the plane and climbed aboard.
"I didn't know how in heck to operate the thing and I couldn't read the Italian instructions. But it looked something like the instrument board of a Spit so I pulled out gadgets and trusted to luck.
"I got up in the air ok, but when I had to land it was a different matter. I found I had no flaps. The Italians had cut them away. So I landed awful fast and amid a cloud of steam, for the radiator had also been damaged."

"Spirit" of Windsor
Later he got spare parts from other Italian booty and he finally had the Macchi running smoothly. He used it "to have fun in" around his own drome and he painted it grey and called it "The Spirit of the City of Windsor."
He put in five hours hazardous flying — for he had to warn ground gunners who he was before each flight. Then one day the plane took a direct hit from a German bomb. "I was trying to figure a way to bring it home with me and the Jerry bomb solved the whole problem," he smiled ruefully.
Among the group of returning airmen were: F/L James B. Cleveland, D.F.C., of Toronto; F/O A. R. Carter, D.F.C., of Toronto, and F/O A. G. Smith, D.F.M., of Toronto.

"An experienced R.A.F. night fighter pilot, F/L John A. Haddon, DFC took part in four invasions; received the DFC after his first tour of Operations; and was credited with destroying 4 enemy planes; 2 in North Africa and 2 in the Normandy campaign.
Although he was with R.A.F. squadrons, F/L Haddon was a part of the D-Day invasion force. Some years after the war he emigrated to Canada, became a Canadian citizen in 1955, and has resided in Mississauga, Ont.
F/L John A. Haddon, DFC Sqns 153, 604, 8301, 14 R.A.F.
"It is often forgotten about D-Day in Normandy that for many of us it was the third or fourth invasion that we had covered and was not the traumatic experience that is was for so many UK-based operational crews. My own navigator had been at Narvik (Norway) with the Army; was shot down covering the Dieppe raid; and was with me in French North African, Sicily and Italian invasions, as well as the cross-Channel invasion. For this reason, our recollections may be less sharp than first-time invaders may possess.
"Beaufighters were night fighter planes. Effective night fighting came into being in the late 1940-early 1941 time period when attempts to employ single engine fighters were given up and Mark III and Mark IV radar became available. It may be easier to understand how the R.A.F., R.C.A.F., R.A.A.F., R.N.Z.A.F. night fighter force came into being and was employed. Thus you will see how the breakdown into national units became difficult.
"Very powerful and well designed Beaufighters with 4 cannon and 6 machine guns gave very large range and the fire power of any six hostile fighter aircraft. Radar beacons came into play, and since the Beaufighter carried navigators as well as a pilot, it could be used in very bad weather. Also, it was learned that an early concept that masters of science with specialties in advance maths were needed to operate airborne radar was not only false, but detrimental, and that sharp gentlemen with intuition and an eye on the main chance - such as professional card players, good used car salesmen were much more effective as Radar Operators (ROs) as they were called.
"This gathering of equipment and knowledge occurred just as the first full production of aircrew came out of the Commonwealth Air Training Scheme. Thus it was that many Aussies, New Zealanders, Canadians, U.S. citizens in the R.C.A.F. joined a minority of Britons in the first night fighter Operational Training Units (in Scotland) to be established, and a very disconsolate bunch they were too.
"We had envisioned flying over the White Cliffs of Dover in Spitfires by day and dashing into the pubs at night, and there we were doing just the opposite. They had picked out the fighter pilots from the bombers, usually for their fast speed reaction, and then went over the fighters looking for superior instrument flying ability and good night vision for the night fighters. Thus many of the night fighter squadrons, although nominally Canadian, Aussie, British, were in fact a very mixed bunch, who all knew one another and gained their operational experience together. Mixed crews were common.
"I was in the R.A.F., not the R.C.A.F., although I have been a Canadian since 1955. My first Sqn, 153, was formed in Northern Ireland for a task in Belfast and it was a third R.C.A.F., a third Aussie and New Zealanders, and a third from everywhere else you can imagine. The group stayed together as a squadron, and were very close friends, from November 1941 until about March 1943 in the U.K. for the invasion of North Africa, Sicily and Italy and came back for a rest as instructors in a U.K. night OTU. You can imagine the dismay of my very close friend F/L Nick Carter, DFC, of Toronto when he learned that be couldn't come to the same squadrons as his friends, to prepare for the next invasion, but had to join an entirely unknown R.C.A.F. Squadron, I think 409, whom he regarded as an entirely inexperienced bunch in the business of invasions. He was killed early in 1945, I think when something went wrong with his aircraft, and naturally his old friends blamed poor R.C.A.F. maintenance. When, in fact, there was probably no cause for such scurrilous gossip at all. This breakup into national groups at that time made no sense operationally and caused a lot of misunderstandings that need never have occurred. Later, the same thing was to happen with the U.S.A.F."

Victories Include :

29/30 Jan 1943
14/15 June 1944

two Ju88's
two He111's

destroyed
destroyed

(V8642 - Algiers Bay)
(EL168 - Tunisia)

4 / 0 / 0

Arthur Reginald "Nick" Carter

Second Member Of R.C.A.F. Wins Second Bar To D.F.C.

DRIVE IN ITALY NO SURPRISE, AIRMAN NOTES

Victories Include :